Welcome to our 2013-2014 Focal Point page! We are looking forward to a wonderful year of activities. We hope this website will serve as a resource for educators (broadly understood) and those interested in "youth" more broadly. We will also keep you updated on our activities, culminating in our workshop for educators during the Spring Semester; stay tuned!
Rationale
How might we understand the complex lives of contemporary Black and Latino youth? During a time of so-called colorblindness and mass incarceration-what Michelle Alexander (2010) has aptly called the "new Jim Crow" - what are the best teaching practices and programs for youth whose in-school education oftentimes has little salience for their everyday lives? These young people suffer under what sociologist Victor Rios (2011) has called a ''youth control complex." This "control complex" manifests in material and symbolic ways. Although understanding the policing of Black and Latino youth is important, it ignores myriad ways in which youth resist and persist - through their engagement with and production of cultural texts. We hope to raise awareness and address some of these issues.
This Focal Point project brings together a diverse group of faculty and students in order to study contemporary Black and Latino youth experiences across educational contexts. Our study group readings will center on broad categories including: adolescent development; language and literacy; youth bodies in urban spaces; youth culture and activism; and gender and sexuality. Throughout the year we will hold workshops and panel discussions with educators, students, and faculty to discuss the aforementioned topics. Our project will culminate with a two-day workshop for educators, which explores the best teaching practices for incorporating youth culture into educational spaces. We have invited internationally known scholars Drs. Geneva Smitherman, Ana Celia Zentella, H. Samy Alim, and David E. Kirkland to help facilitate our workshop.
This project will impact graduate education at the University of Illinois by allowing students to participate in public engagement activities with educators and youth from Champaign-Urbana and Chicago, extending the University's outreach footprint. Graduate students will also be afforded the opportunity to network with internationally known scholars along with teaching graduate students the value of interdisciplinary collaboration for intellectual development and community programming.